Gaffers Gob: 26th March 2009 - Sniffers‏ FC

On entering the bar area you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. What had happened in the last week to turn the normally placid Mollie's into characters from Shameless? Well if you look down the blog you can see an entry from our "Anonymous" commentator which is full of diatribe and half truths. This entry caused such offence that the team has become somewhat fractured. Anon's or DJ's comments he asserted were based on his belief that Alan and Steve don't play to win. What he seems to fail to realise is that we all play to win but that we put enjoying our football above trying to achieve promotion. Consequently, although we frequently get our backside handed to us by superior teams, we don't mind as we just enjoy playing the game for the fun of running around. In any event, last nights performance, showed the lack of foundation in our anonymous geordie cheerleaders beliefs.

There was a lot riding on this match as if we won and Red Bull Utd lost, we would be promoted. Clearly, Wor Don thought we would throw this one and avoid the Premiership. It was a burning sense of injustice that the Mollie's took the astro turf on a cold and windy March evening. Unfortunately, as soon as the match kicked off, we were immediately out matched in terms of possession and movement. However, the Gaffer, in an uncharacteristic show of dexterity and movement, pulled out a number of saves at the edge of his diving range. It was unfortunate that his earlier saves went for nothing when he let a shot that was clearly going passed the post nestle into the corner of the net. Big Oops.

The Mollie's were being worked hard in defence and Steve and Leo were in danger of being over run. It seemed that as hard as we tackled, and as fast as we moved, they used their possession better and were more inventive in their movement and so created chances by the dozen. In contrast, when the Mollie's had the ball, we were knocked off it and gave it away before threatening their Goal. Gareth was again misfiring claiming a bad neck. What ever the truth, in the 4 years I've played for Mollie's, i have seen his level of speed and dexterity diminish as he has left school, got a job and started noticing beer and fags. Much like any old person, his mind is willing but his body can no longer do what the mind asks of it. That is my explanation for his consistent wishing to run the ball out of defence and being robbed of it by 2 to 3 players when he could easily have passed it. James problems kind of went the other way. Following his brilliance of 3 weeks ago, he continues to try repeating his incisive passing but tended to hit any other colour than dark blue. The one bright spot was his lone first half goal which at least stopped the possibility of a shut out which was very much on the cards in the early stages of the game. We went into half time about 6-1 down and looking down the wrong end of a really bad wedgie.

The second half was much improved. tactically we decided to hit shots at the opposition earlier and play slightly higher up the pitch. There was little point in holding back as we needed to win to stand any chance of promotion. James started to pass a little more accurately to link with Alan for probably the goal of the game which was through one touch passing and a first time shot. The match was very open in the second half as the Mollie's began to exert themselves. The gaffer has infrequently been given as much work to do as the game descended into you attack, we attack patterns of play. We started to hit the target and by my calculations, the second half finished 6-6. A far better return for our efforts and highlighting an improvement in our shooting accuracy. We still passed as if we were colour blind but because they constantly had 3 people in attack, we were able to catch them on the break. This was the biggest improvement on the first half when the only person not in our third of the pitch was their keeper.

And so ends possibly the most controversial Mollie's season for some time. It was a season beset by problems and one where a change of venue has been mooted. Also, we descended into a bit of infighting but hopefully no one can argue that we aren't all committed to trying to win if only for the fun of it. This season the Mollie's also found out how much we rely on Leo as he tends to stabilise the whole right flank and have an attacking as well as defensive impact.

Alan has lost, found, lost, found and again lost his shooting boots but makes up for it by covering as much of the pitch as possible in 40 minutes. James has followed the family trait of inconsistency by swinging from genius to madness week to week. i think his delicate equilibrium has been badly affected by Steve stealing the penalty taking responsibilities from under his nose. Steve has continued to be a defensive stalwart but is finding a taste for scoring goals he has previously not been far up the pitch to attempt. It is encouraging to overhear opposition cries every week as he barrels people to the floor. No doubt he continues to be our dirtiest player. On the odd occasion Robbie has played, he has been a solid performer in defence and gives Leo the cover to abandon being a wing back. In my opinion there continue to be encouraging signs and next season should be good, as long as we can play every week! There is little doubt that the names on the league from week 1 bear no resemblance to the names at week 10.

Team for next weeks kick off so far is Matt, Steve, Alan, James. Times will be confirmed over the weekend.